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OUTREACH TO TERRORISTS?
February 25, 2003 -- WHAT to make of the fact that a Muslim extremist (or "Islamist") named Sami Al-Arian was arrested and indicted last week on 50 counts, among them conspiracy to finance terrorist attacks that killed more than 100 people - including two Americans? It is not, as Al-Arian claimed when federal agents led him away, "all about politics."
After all, this alleged leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad - which Attorney General John Ashcroft has described as "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world" - was allowed into the Bush White House on at least one occasion. According to The Washington Post, in one of these meetings, he was among the front-row attendees at a briefing by the man who is, arguably, Bush's chief aide: Karl Rove.
Generally, political foes do not receive such treatment.
The Post also ran a photo of Al-Arian with candidate George W. Bush and wife Laura at a March 2000 campaign stop. Perhaps this photo-op was a way of thanking Al-Arian and his wife for the efforts they claim to have made on Bush's behalf "in Florida mosques and elsewhere, because they thought him the candidate most likely to fight discrimination against Arab-Americans."
Al-Arian had particular reason to prefer Bush since the latter had pledged as part of his campaign's "outreach" to the Muslim community to end the use of secret evidence against suspected terrorists. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen al-Najjar, was incarcerated for 31/2 years on the basis of such evidence, prior to his deportation.
Also in the photo: Al-Arian's son Abdullah, who Bush dubbed "Big Dude." Big Dude was himself admitted into the White House six days after his father's June 2001 visit. Yet, as The Wall Street Journal noted, "the Secret Service deemed Mr. Al-Arian's son - at the time an intern in a Democratic congressional office - a security risk and ejected him" from the meeting.
NEW YORK POST
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/69368.htm